“Thank you.”

As she walked back to the kitchen, Ross surveyed the apartment. It was many times larger than his own and far more luxurious. The foyer opened to a large sala with a vaulted ceiling, a massive, stone-lined fire-place and an ivory-colored piano in the far corner. There were four windows, tall and arched, and they were covered with exquisite drapery, the outer layers in thick velvet fabric with burgundy-and-golden fringe, the inner curtains of sheer silk, glowing amber with the setting sun.

With the exception of a Murano glass chandelier in the center of the room, all lighting was indirect, behind brass sconces that feathered the walls from mustard-gold to deep umber in the shadows. The home was immaculately kept and expensively decorated with antique furniture, both Italian and foreign. Some of it looked as if it had originally belonged to the home.

Most impressive to Ross was the amount of art that filled the house. There were paintings or intricate wall tapestries mounted on every wall: landscapes, portraits and still lifes.

A stereo in the main hallway softly played Mozart. After a while he walked into the kitchen. A pot of pasta was boiling on the stove, the steam rising into the black collector above it. On the back burner a smaller pot simmered with a dark, pungent sauce. Eliana was standing at a wooden cutting board, dicing pancetta with a large cleaver. When she finished chopping the meat, she walked to the stove, lifted the boiling pot of spaghetti and poured it into a stainless steel colander in the sink, tilting her head to one side to avoid the rising cloud of steam. Then she poured the spaghetti back into the pot with a chunk of unsalted butter.

He looked around the kitchen. It was a blend of old-style decor complemented by modern accessories. Then he noticed, on an oiled wood beam above a shelf of copper pots, a neat row of empty wine bottles. He looked carefully at the labels. They were all identical, though labeled with different years. L’incanto. The same wine he had brought for their dinner.

“Is that the wine you make?”

She bit her lower lip. She had hoped he wouldn’t notice. “Yes.”

“I brought you your own wine.”

She smiled. “Yes. But that’s very flattering.”

“It’s what the shop recommended,” he said. He put his hands in his pockets, looking slightly embarrassed. “Where’s your son?”

“He’s watching television upstairs. His name is Alessio.”

“How is he?”

“He finally seems to be over his sickness, thank goodness.” She reached over and put a frying pan on the stove. “A cold takes on a whole new meaning with asthma.”

“How long has he had asthma?”

“His whole life, probably. But our first real episode was when he was two.” She slid the pancetta across the cutting board with her knife, pushing the meat into the pan. It started to sizzle and the smell of the meat added to the room’s bouquet. She let it fry until it was browned on both sides.